UN survey participants: one-day 10,000 trumps two-year 8 million plus

In my previous post, I had reported on what were the latest and greatest results from a United Nations (UN) sponsored survey of the world’s priorities.

Readers may recall that “Action taken on climate change” had garnered a mere 1.7 million votes i.e. it was the very bottom of the list of respondents’ sixteen possible choices:

This bottom of the list position is where “Action taken on climate change” has been since I first stumbled across this survey, circa June 2013.

Those who chose to cast their ballots were told that (inter alia):

the era of making decisions about global issues behind closed doors with little citizen involvement was coming to an end.

And no less a personnage than UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, had issued a press release in which he had declared that this “incredibly rich source of information about what people want” would be:

[…]shared with Mr. Ban, his High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, and world leaders.

[…]

Yesterday, Mr. Ban met with four youth volunteers who are capturing communities’ development priorities and called on the public to make a difference on the issues that impact their lives the most.

These inputs, along with those from across the UN system and beyond, including the outcomes of consultations going on worldwide and the voices of businesses, academia and the scientific community, will feed into the work of the Panel, which will present its report in May**

** Presumably in May 2015, although no year was stated. Yet a few days ago, my mouse and I had stumbled across:

Here’s a link to the English version of the survey. One thing I will give them credit for is that for each of the questions, covered by the five themes (of which three pertained to “climate”), “Don’t know / Do not wish to answer” was an option!

I haven’t taken the time to download and review the results, yet. And I may not even bother:-) But I’d certainly like to know the math that was used which led the powers that be at the UNEP to conclude that the views of 10,000 people from (presumably) 97 countries supercede – and are more deserving of far more hype and mention than – those of over 8 million people worldwide.

Feel free to “nit pick” away, Captain Dave! Can’t quite recall where I got the “97 countries” from. It may well have been from my first discovery of the site (sometime in the past week, before they actually proffered any data or explanatory verbiage) – hence my use of the parenthetical “presumably”!

But I do know that I didn’t pull it out of thin air :-) However, your “97 debates and 76 countries” strongly suggests that they seem to have “redefined” the word “global”. Even from the context of the 193 “countries” the UN claims as “member nations”, “76 countries” is not exactly what I would describe as “worldwide”. Ergo, the validity of the results of this “survey” may well be … well, worse and far less than we thought!

As an aside – and for the record (at least for today’s record!) – my mouse and I decided to attempt to d/l their purported “raw data” as advertised at:

Perhaps at some point, that link will actually take one to a page where one can “download” the results in .csv format (as advertised somewhere on the site!). But, alas, not today! Or at least not for me ‘n my mouse!

It would certainly be interesting to know, though, how they might have arrived at their “10,000” participants because in trying out their web-based available data interface, approximately 8,500 was the maximum no. of respondents!

The UN is surely taking a leaf out of the EU’s book, here – if you ask a question and get the wrong answer, ask it again or ask it in a different way or ask some different people until you get the right answer. In the EU, for instance, the Lisbon Treaty could not come into force until it was ratified by all member states. Ireland foolishly gave its citizens a referendum on the subject, and the answer was a “no”, which was clearly incorrect, so there had to be a second referendum in order to yield the correct “yes” answer.

In this case, we have 8 million people worldwide incorrectly placing climate change at the bottom of the list. How could this be? (Sadly, it is likely that these were not true global citizens – or perhaps they were simply innocent dupes of the Elders of Exxon, Illuminati or other shadowy force for evil.) No matter, the correct answer needed to be found in time for COP21 – and by a spontaneous miracle of global unity, it was! :-)

If during the course of the last 20 years or so the UNEP (and/or the EU) had not succeeded in increasing the numbers of the willingly-gullible – who so readily succumb to supporting and/or spouting the mantra of the week, day or hour as propagated by the arms, elbows, hands fingers etc of those two bodies, particularly on the “climate” and/or anti-Israel fronts – then perhaps we would not be in this ever-deepening morass of political ineptitude.

To some extent, I blame Obama and his army of dedicated writers/followers for leading this descent. While our own legislators and wannabes should know – and behave – better, his “success” has unfortunately spawned far too many equally inept imitators.

And on a somewhat related note … I was just skimming the latest and greatest from the UN’s quasi-official rapporteur, Maurice Strong’s IISD, where I found such gems as:

[First the context -hro:]
Briefing Note on Implementing SDG 7:

The Role of Partnerships in Ensuring Access to Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable, and Modern Energy For All

The high-level event on ‘Implementing Sustainable Development Goal 7: The Role of partnerships in Ensuring Access to Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable and Modern Energy For All’ took place on 27 September 2015 in New York, US, on the margins of the UN Sustainable Development Summit.

The event celebrated the adoption of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 on energy, and showcased commitments and actions towards SDG 7 by a wide range of stakeholders, including high-level representatives of governments, international organizations, civil society and the private sector.

[Now some meet – or “meat”, take your pick – slices:]

[…]

Jan Eliasson, UN Deputy Secretary-General, called for working horizontally, across sectors, and for leveraging multi-stakeholder partnerships in implementing SDG 7. He noted that SE4All was created to serve as a toolbox for all the stakeholders.

Mogens Lykketoft, President, UN General Assembly, noted that implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will require determination, partnerships, innovation, financing and transfer of clean technologies. He announced that he will convene a high-level event on climate change, sustainable development, and financing, focused on the opportunities provided by public-private partnerships (PPPs), and that he will support advancing the work on the Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries.

[…]

David Hallam, UK Envoy for Post 2015 Development Goals, UK Department for International Development (DFID), said it is important to focus on research and evidence gathering in order to best meet the energy needs of women and girls.

[…]

PANEL 3: DOUBLE THE GLOBAL RATE OF IMPROVEMENT IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY BY 2030

[In the interest of transatlantic equity in meaningless inanities:]

Gregor Robertson, Mayor, City of Vancouver, Canada, reviewed efforts his city has undertaken, including the adoption of the greenest building code in North America and setting the goal that, by 2020, all new buildings will be carbon neutral. He noted the benefits from tracking and publicizing progress towards goals to promote “active transportation,” including walking, biking and public transportation. He also suggested redefining what sister cities are and seeking to achieve more tangible results from these partnerships.

CLOSING SEGMENT: ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 7

[…]

Ingrid Hoven, Director General, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany, noted that in 2014, Germany’s sustainable energy portfolio was 3 billion Euros and focused on 23 countries. She said Germany plans to facilitate access to sustainable energy to 100 million people by 2030.

“The Holy See said true sustainable energy for all requires a “radical” paradigm shift in behavior and view of the economy and development, and called for prioritizing energy consumption and distribution on the basis of justice and solidarity.”

So: energy rationing, based on “justice and solidarity”… What could possibly go wrong with that idea?

They intend using this nonsense to take control of our energy in Paris in December. The carbon tax will provide an independent income stream that will fund UN activities without reference to State funding and the controls that brings.

We are about to witness a large step up in UN activism as they ration our energy and food. Unfortunately not enough people are concerned about this Hilary.

Coming soon is a global bank transaction tax that will also accrue to the UN making them even more independent and giving them a lot more information about the activities of the global population.

What a pity it is that so many people will welcome this extension of UN power.

Keitho, while I do not share your dire predictions regarding the actual outcomes of the December deliberations in Paris, I don’t doubt that there will be many loud – and ill-informed – voices calling for such outcomes.

Not to mention yet another rather thinly disguised attempted power-grab on the part of the UN under the “climate change” mantra – which (IMHO) is increasingly being rolled into the even foggier and less defined “sustainable development”.

But at the back of my mind is the big question: where on Gaia’s green earth do these people think all the trillion$ will be coming from?!

That being said, I very much doubt that we would be seeing/hearing an ever-increasing number of such ignorant voices (cf Shukla et al, most recently) calling for the silencing/sentencing of those of us on the truly skeptical side of the great divide if our ranks were as (relatively) minimal as they were prior to Climategate.

To my mind those who welcome such extensions of UN power are primarily those who’ve been “brainwashed” by the UN and its ever-increasing army of NGOs. And while I don’t dispute that those numbers are alarmingly increasing, I have to live in hope that we who belong to the silent and not so silent majority will ultimately prevail, and that more of our democratically elected governments will come to their respective senses – preferably by completely withdrawing from the UN and letting it collapse under the weight of its word-salads and debts.

“But at the back of my mind is the big question: where on Gaia’s green earth do these people think all the trillion$ will be coming from?!”

I think we’re all missing the point here. Mere money is nothing compared to the collective willpower of “everyone” on Planet Earth! All it requires is a massive feel-good campaign and we will just… make it so!

On that web-page, here’s a quote from Richard Curtis (he of “No Pressure” splatter-video fame, you will recall):

‘Speaking about the ground-breaking collaboration Richard Curtis, founder of Project Everyone, said “The Millennium Development Goals halved extreme poverty across the world. The new Global Goals for Sustainable Development give us the opportunity to end it for good. There’s no point in going half way. By making the Global Goals famous we can give them their best chance of working around the world – and help make us the first generation to end extreme poverty, the most determined generation in history to end injustice and inequality, and the last generation to be threatened by climate change.”’

So it wasn’t really boring, grubby stuff like trade or capitalism that had much to do with halving extreme poverty in the world, it was the Millennium Development Goals that did it!

The fact that neither of us had any inklings that this “biggest ever collaboration of campaigners, artists, sports stars, performers and companies” was going on until some time after the supposedly crucial 7-day period, I think speaks volumes. :)

http://bcove.me/lkqwo1h3 works OK. There is a massive push from all directions in preparation for Paris.
The “Social Good Summit” was part of the multi pronged attack, with many of the same names as above, like Richard Curtis.

The list includes such luminaries as Victoria Beckham and Charlize Theron, (Actress & Activist United Nations Messenger of Peace). The UN big hitters were present in abundance, including his nibs, Ban Ki Moon, with stalwarts such as Gro Harlem Brundtland, Achim Steiner, Helen Clark.

The UK’s former PM and his wife are now on the UN gravy train, Sarah Brown, Global Education and Health Advocate. Husband Gordon is UN Special Envoy for Global Education. He still pretends to be an MP for the salary.

If nothing else, never let it be said that the UN – and its ever-increasing multiplicity of arms, elbows, hands and fingers etc. does not wildly succeed in its practice of the noble art and artifice of “recycling”!

One also wonders how they could possibly have achieved such “success” without the wonders of the web, onto which they appear to have glommed but not glistened – in the last few years.

But I suppose this is in keeping with the UN’s “tradition” of (with sincere apologies to the great Tom Lehrer) “Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect”!

Don’t you think it would be an interesting exercise if a credible interlocutor were to interview some of these recycled luminaries in “real time” to see if they have any knowledge whatsoever of their “appointments” to these (for all we know) virtual insta-bodies of the ludicrously-named kind?!